The effect of hydrogen on the mechanical properties of FeTi for hydrogen storage applications

In this paper, the density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) was used. The single crystal elastic constants for the intermetallic FeTi and its hydrides FeTiH and FeTiH₂ are successfully obtained from the stress–strain relationship calculations and the strain energy-strain curves calculations, respectively. The shear modulus, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and shear anisotropic factors are also calculated. The bulk moduli derived from the elastic constants calculations of the cubic FeTi, orthorhombic P222₁ FeTiH and Cmmm FeTiH₂ are calculated. For cubic FeTi compound, the bulk modulus is in a good agreement with both theoretical results and experimental data available in the literature. More importantly, it is found that, the insertion of hydrogen into the FeTi crystal structure causes an increase in the bulk modulus. From the analysis of shear-to-bulk modulus ratio, it is found that FeTi compound and its hydrides are ductile and that this ductibility, changes with changing the concentration of hydrogen.     

A phase‑locked loop using ESO‑based loop flter for grid‑connected converter: performance analysis

An extended state observer (ESO)-based loop flter is designed for the phase-locked loop (PLL) involved in a disturbed gridconnected converter (GcC). This ESO-based design enhances the performances and robustness of the PLL, and, therefore, improves control performances of the disturbed GcCs. Besides, the ESO-based LF can be applied to PLLs with extra flters for abnormal grid conditions. The unbalanced grid is particularly taken into account for the performance analysis. A tuning approach based on the well-designed PI controller is discussed, which results in a fair comparison with conventional PItype PLLs. The frequency domain properties are quantitatively analysed with respect to the control stability and the noises rejection. The frequency domain analysis and simulation results suggest that the performances of the generated ESO-based controllers are comparable to those of the PI control at low frequency, while have better ability to attenuate high-frequency measurement noises. The phase margin decreases slightly, but remains acceptable. Finally, experimental tests are conducted with a hybrid power hardware-in-the-loop benchmark, in which balanced/unbalanced cases are both explored. The obtained results prove the efectiveness of ESO-based PLLs when applied to the disturbed GcC.     

Influence of Topical Fluorides on corrosion behaviour of silver amalgam alloys

Potentiodynamic polarization and cyclic voltametry measurements were employed to study the effect of topical fluoride preparations on corrosion of silver amalgam alloy in synthetic saliva and aqueous fluoride solutions. Results support that small amounts of copper and indium alloyed to silver – tin amalgam enhance corrosion resistance considerably. Indiloy shifts both the open circuit potential and the anodic polarization curve to more positive potential values, this lead to a decreases in the current density. The weak activity of Indiloy as compared with Spheraloy is attributed to the fact that the amount of γ₂ phase (tin–mercury) present in the former is much lesser than that present in the latter. Findings also show that fluoride solutions (NaF, SnF and SnF + HCI) enhance the dissolution rate of the investigasted alloys and the polarization curves illustrate the appearance of an active – passive transitions. This behaviour was discussed on the basis of complex formation. Cyclic voltammograms confirm the results obtained from the potentiodynamic polarization measurements and elucidate the anodic oxidation peaks of silver oxide and copper verifying the proposed mechanism.     

A phase-locked loop using ESO-based loop filter for grid-connected converter:performance analysis

An extended state observer(ESO)-based loop filter is designed for the phase-locked loop(PLL)involved in a disturbed grid-connected converter(GcC).This ESO-based...     

Composites structural modelling with uncertain data

The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology to take into account the influence of uncertain data in structural calculations. A specific method, based on the approximation of the responses as a function of the uncertain data, is proposed. Classical methods from the literature are also considered. The different methods are compared on a simple example in terms of response (average value and standard deviation) and in terms of computational cost. The method proposed in the present work permits to estimate correctly the whole response and is very simple to use (pre and post processing). This method is applied to a structural calculation on a “hat-shapes” part called, manufactured in the quasi-isotropic IM7/977-2 composite.     

Reliability indicator for layered composites with strongly non-linear behaviour

This paper set out a method to determine safety factors when designing composite laminate with strongly non-linear behaviour. The failure probability is used to assess the laminate reliability.     

Evaluation of a protein-rich vegetable mixture for prevention of protein-calorie malnutrition

Experiments showed that a crushed groundnut–chickpea–sesame (3:2:1) mixture is an adequate source of protein comparable with casein as a constituent of a 20% protein diet for promoting growth and nitrogen retention in young rats, synthesis of their serum proteins and haemoglobin, their maturation, reproduction, lactation and breeding of three generations of normal healthy animals.     

Asymptotic Distortion Performance of Source-Channel Diversity over Multihop and Relay Channels

A key challenge in the design of real-time wireless multimedia systems is the presence of fading coupled with strict delay constraints. A very effective answer to this problem is the use of diversity achieving techniques to overcome the fading nature of the wireless channels caused by the mobility of the nodes. The mobility of the nodes gives rise to the need of cooperation among the nodes to enhance the system performance. This paper focuses on comparing systems that exhibit diversity of three forms: source coding diversity, channel coding diversity, and user cooperation diversity implemented through multihop or relay channels with amplify-and-forward or decode-and-forward protocols. Commonly used in multimedia communications, performance is measured in terms of the distortion exponent, which measures the rate of decay of the end-to-end distortion at asymptotically high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). For the case of repetition coding at the relay nodes, we prove that having more relays is not always beneficial. For the general case of having a large number of relays that can help the source using repetition coding, the optimum number of relay nodes that maximizes the distortion exponent is determined in this paper. This optimum number of relay nodes will depend on the system bandwidth as well as the channel quality. The derived result shows a trade-off between the quality (resolution) of the source encoder and the amount of cooperation (number of relay nodes). Also, the performances of the channel coding diversity-based scheme and the source coding diversity-based scheme are compared. The results show that for both relay and multihop channels, channel coding diversity provides the best performance, followed by the source coding diversity.     

A Novel Constellation Shaping Technique for Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation

We present a new and simple method which consists to apply constellation shaping to bit-interleaved turbo-coded modulation (BICTM) over additive white Gaussian noise channels. By assuming the example of a 3-bit/dim 16-PAM BITCM, it is shown that this technique can provide shaping gain of 0.79 dB.     

Pelletization kinetics of an earthy iron ore and the physical properties of the pellets produced

The iron ore sample used in this investigation was brought from the El-Gedida iron ore deposit, Baharia Oasis, Egypt. This ore is porous, earthy, hard, and has a relatively high specific surface area.The batch balling kinetics of this ore show that the ball growth rate increased by increasing the moisture content. The water content required for pelletizing this ore ranged between 16 and 19% of the dry weight of the charge. As expected, increase in bentonite content retarded the ball growth. Finer feed produced by more dry grinding increased the ball growth rate.The average drop number of pellets was improved by increasing the moisture content to a certain limit, after which the quality of the pellets decreased. The drop number also went up as the amount of bentonite was increased. Increasing the degree of fineness of ore improved the level of drop number.The crushing strength of dried pellets improved with increasing water content to a certain limit, then the trend reversed. Bentonite addition slightly improved the crushing strength of pellets. Increasing the degree of fineness of the ore decreased the crushing strength of dry pellets.The bulk density of pellets increased with higher moisture content to a certain limit and then the trend reversed. Small amounts of bentonite addition decreased the bulk density, but when bentonite exceeded 0.5% the bulk density slightly increased with increasing amount of bentonite. Denser pellets were produced when finer feed was used.